Linux Application Naming Conventions

[jcrnan]

Linux naming conventions suck. They really absolutley suck.

How is that linux programs in general have terrible names? Yes names are often uniqe and sometimes even catchy, but theyre horribly undescriptive. Same thing with icons.

examples:

Amarok: Music player huh? wolf icon? plays music?

vs

iTunes: tunes.. ahh.. music. cd with tone on, ahh.. music..


firefox

vs

internet explorer

live messenger

vs

gaim/kopete


photoshop

vs

gimp


Now ofcourse there are exceptions and such, and this also applies to noncommercial software in general, but its still a problem. People deciding names and logos for their applications really need to learn more about marketing and what makes a name/logo good.

anyone that agree with me? anyone that feel like flaming me?

[PriceChild]

A name is a name.

The reason the software spreads is because of good reviews from friends/websites.

Personally i like quirky names... capital letters in the middle of no-where ;)

[jcrnan]

Well, that is part of the problem. That some people like quirky names and uses them on applications. Applications should have intuitive icons and names.

And a name isnt just a name. The name is hugley important as it along with the logo/icon is the number one way to brand the application.

[PriceChild]

Well, that is part of the problem. That some people like quirky names and uses them on applications. Applications should have intuitive icons and names.Many agree... you will be pleased to learn that many menu items are being renamed in edgy. For example Alacarte is now "Menu Layout"

[ixus_123]

Gimp is pretty good - it stands for something & the other meaning of the name certainly perks up peoples ears when they hear it for the first time.

Apple example but they are famous for promoting their work in progress names - tiger, panther etc.

I see you're point about names being descriptine but if they were then everthing would have to be double or tripple barrelled

If someone says Firefox, I know & You know it's a web browser.

Microsoft-Internet-Explorer though, while descrpitive would get lost in a sea of browsers if everyone else followed the naming convention

Camino-Internet-Explorer
safari_Internet-...

By differentiating the name & the product I think it's easier to set oneself apart from the competition. Most of these things get released as Alphas & Betas with code names & the names just stick

Subbird/Firefox was pretty much stable from when I started using at 0.2 & it was pretty popular back then I suppose changing the name to something else would hurt the market share they had already got from Alph / Beta releases

[slimdog360]

I know the acronym is obscure but if people read anything about it they find gimp == GNU Image Manipulation Program.

but yeah I see where your coming from.

[aysiu]

It's just zany/homegrown vs. commercially manufactured.

[maniacmusician]

It's just zany/homegrown vs. commercially manufactured.
That's only partially true. The OP is right in that it's much more effective to have names that make sense. The examples he gave are valid...you can guess what iTunes is, but not amarok. But it's just a matter of preference I suppose. soem people, like the OP, like their programs to be organized and be clear, make sense, etc. Personally, I like the crazy names. I just check the description to see what they do. I don't know how the majority of "normal" users would want though.

[aysiu]

Considering people don't mind Skype, YouTube, Xanga, or Eudora... I don't think the names matter that much.

After all, I've never heard anyone say, "KSpread--obviously a spreadsheet program--just made my Linux migration that much easier... unlike Firefox... what the hell is that?"

More likely, Firefox made them more comfortable because it was familiar, not descriptive.

Most Windows users I know don't even know IE is called Internet Explorer. They just call it "the internet" and recognize the blue icon. In fact, all my co-workers refer to Thunderbird as mozilla instead of thunderbird, and they don't seem to mind the name has nothing to do with email (and they actually get the name wrong, anyway).

[prizrak]

I agree with aysiu here (and other people), names matter very little. You know that Google is for searching the web. If you didn't and I told you to "google it" you'd think I'm a an idiot. If you are good at math you would wonder how can a mathematical convention help you with a problem.

Even beyond computers look at regular products. Motorola - makes cellphones, and has stylized wings for a logo. Could you have figured it out if you didn't know what they did? Actually there is an Experiment do you know what a Lancer Evolution FQ400 MR is? Or an MR2? Or an Exige?

[jcrnan]

I dont mind creative and uniqe names, but its fully possible to combine creativity and intuitivity. Good examples are programs like Rythmbox and Timemachine or even to a lesser degree safari. Names like safari are in the middle, they dont tell you what the program do but the name is somehow connected to the programs function, so users can go "ah, that makes sense".

The ubuntu devs seem to have understood the importance of this issue. I dont know if you have noticed but many programs in the standard ubuntu menu have things added to their names. Like Firefox Web Browesr, Evolution Mail, Xsane Image Scanner, Gimp Image Editor, Gaim Instant Messenger. While doing this thing is good it should be unessecery.

As mentioned names like safari are better because they give some kind of connectivity when you find out what it is, but names like Amarok and Kopete (wich afaik doesnt even mean anything) is annoying in this regard even if they can sound cool.


edit: Lots of big companies have crap names and such, but when its already big (like firefox) it doesnt actually matter as much because then you have brand regonition. Even if a brandname gets big doesnt mean its actually a good name. Same thing with logos. Lots of large companies generally have crap logos but they work wonderfully because people regonize them and know them.

[Kindred]

I'm writing two applications right now, they'll both have weird names. :)

I don't think it's important at all, in fact.. i'd say semi-weird names can be better for branding and gaining users even. I read a lot about this stuff when I was choosing a domain name, it's interesting.

[Lord Illidan]

Amazon, Google, all those are not very easy to understand. Sony. Apple. Can you identify what those manufacturers produce solely by looking at the name? No.

Regarding Amarok, it does have a connection with music, as it is the name of a track of Mike Oldfield. Other than that, why not name it Amarok (Music Player) in the menus.

I don't think the solution is to rebrand all opensource program names..

[prizrak]

jcrnan:
Homie, the point is that you got no point. IBM stands for International Business Machines, how many people know that? Motorola, LG, Mitsubishi, Honda, Sony, Ford, Chevrolet, Gain (detergent), Ariel (detergent), Downy, etc... All have non descriptive names. Hell MS Visual Studio has a weird name, first time I heard the name I thought it was a graphics program. The name should be interesting, memorable, not mean anything offensive, and easy to say/write, that is all. It makes very little difference what it is (this is straight out of a marketing class btw).


Lots of big companies have crap names and such, but when its already big (like firefox) it doesnt actually matter as much because then you have brand regonition. Even if a brandname gets big doesnt mean its actually a good name. Same thing with logos. Lots of large companies generally have crap logos but they work wonderfully because people regonize them and know them.
Were those companies big as soon as they were founded? No, they were not, they had to work to get there. Can Linux distro's and programs that come with it get big? Firefox got bit despite having a "crappy" name what is stopping AmaroK?

Also (at least in Gnome dunno about KDE) each program is in a special section. So no matter what the name of the program is, you would know what category it falls into. It's easy enough to click on AmaroK under "Sound and Video" and see it's an audio player. When it comes to looking for programs in Synaptic for instance the default search is for name and description so it's easy enough to find stuff no matter what the name is just by entering something that would show up in a description.

I have never heard about anyone who wouldn't switch to Linux because they couldn't figure out what Gaim stood for (btw Gaim is pretty easy to figure out as it's nothing but g/ aim). I hear about people not being able to use applications they are used to or not being able to configure it for their hardware. No one said, man AmaroK is such a ****** name, I'm going back to Windows!

P.S. FYI, Apple's actual name is Apple Computers, Inc. so it's pretty descriptive and even then they are doing pretty badly. While MS whose first OS was DOS that unless you know what it stood for sounded pretty damn cryptic and they still came out on top. Windows ain't exactly an obvious name for an OS either, as opposed to OS X.

[aysiu]

MS Visual Studio isn't a graphics program?

[picpak]

As mentioned names like safari are better because they give some kind of connectivity when you find out what it is, but names like Amarok and Kopete (wich afaik doesnt even mean anything) is annoying in this regard even if they can sound cool.

Amarok should be written backwards. Korama...sweet.

I don't mind quirky names as long as they sound cool without sounding completely out there...e.g, Firefox, Limewire vs. Gimp, Xine.

[Senak^2]

The only thing that bothers me about the Linux naming is that almost all KDE apps start with a freaking K!! Yes it does make it easy to distinguish it as a KDE app, but it still drives me a bit nuts...!

[Peepsalot]

You gotta love those zany programmers and their recursive acronyms.
GNU = GNU's Not Unix.
Wine = Wine is not an emulator
LAME = Lame ain't an mp3 encoder
or
KDE = K Desktop Environment... tell me again what the K stands for?

[skymt]

KDE = K Desktop Environment... tell me again what the K stands for?

The K originally stood for Kool, but now it just stands for K. It was a pun on CDE, the Common Desktop Environment.

[prizrak]

MS Visual Studio isn't a graphics program?

ROFL, thanks for proving me right :) Visual Studio is a programming IDE named so because it is used for Visual Basic, Visual C++. Well it's actually no longer used for C++ of any kind that's been replaced with C# but VB is still there.

[aysiu]

Oh! I never knew that. The word Studio is actually what got me thinking it was more graphic. Now that makes sense, though, because I have heard of Visual Basic before.

[IYY]

Yeah, and "Windows" is the perfect name to describe an operating system. What about programs like Dreamweaver and Firefox? Vista? LongHorn? Even the most official corporate giants pick strange names. It makes the applications more memorable.

Except for LaTeX. A name that nobody can't pronounce can't possible be effective.

[prizrak]

Yeah, and "Windows" is the perfect name to describe an operating system. What about programs like Dreamweaver and Firefox? Vista? LongHorn? Even the most official corporate giants pick strange names. It makes the applications more memorable.

Except for LaTeX. A name that nobody can't pronounce can't possible be effective.
It's not hard to say latex, but makes me think of BDSM :)

[Peepsalot]

Except for LaTeX. A name that nobody can't pronounce can't possible be effective.
Hehe, try PostgreSQL

[Bloodfen Razormaw]

I'm going to disagree here. A user should have no problem with this. When I install KDE I go to the menu and I see a list of application descriptions, with the names only in parentheses, e.g. Web Browser (Konqueror). "Web browser" tells me it is a web browser much better than "Internet Explorer" does. So it explores the Internet? Nope, just the web. GNOME apps often, by convention, will also use descriptions rather than names in its menu. The only people who need to know the names of their programs are users who are going beyond the GUI, and those people know what their applications are anyway.

[skymt]

Except for LaTeX. A name that nobody can't pronounce can't possible be effective.

Lah-Tech. There, see? :)

[ButteBlues]

The OP has a very valid point.

The importance in good naming conventions IS NOT AFTER THE APPLICATION IS WIDELY POPULAR OR ACCEPTED. The true power of a good name is most important when an application is new. Quirky names are fun, yeah, but in all honesty, if I told my friend I was listening to something in Amarok, he'd be utterly confused, whereas, if I'd said iTunes or Windows Media Player or WinAmp they would know exactly what I was doing and with what sort of program.

An example of a good name on a Linux app? gFTP. It's short, sweet, easy-to-remember, and its name tells any sort of knowledgable user what its purpose is. Another? OpenOffice.org Word Processor. I don't think that name leaves any ambiguity at all.

[aysiu]

But the very fact that applications with quirky names can and do become popular means that avoidance of quirky naming isn't all that important after all.

Think about it.

Every day, I hear people saying "Google this" or "Let's Google it" or "I Googled it." Do you know how ridiculous they sound? I remember the first time I heard about Google. I thought it was silly... until I started using it. Until then, I'd used InfoSeeker, Go, Lycos, and a host of other search engines. Now, Google is the dominant search engine.

Recently switched from State Farm to Geico for car insurance. Do you think the name had anything to do with it? How about the pricing? Geico. Yup. Silly name.

When I first told my wife about CyberDuck, do you think she was jumping for joy? Nope. She thought it was silly. Now she raves about CyberDuck--recommends it to all her fellow graphic design students.

Once people have tasted an application, they don't care about the name.

[IYY]

It's not hard to say latex, but makes me think of BDSM

That's because you're saying it incorrectly. It's not actually pronounced ``Latex'' but La-tech like the guy above said.

[Polygon]

the names are fine, Names for programs would be very boring if they were all some play of the word that describes it.

[prizrak]

Recently switched from State Farm to Geico for car insurance. Do you think the name had anything to do with it? How about the pricing? Geico. Yup. Silly name.
Funnily enough GEICO is an acronym, it stands for Government Employee Insurance COmpany :) (My dad was trying to get a job with them a while ago that's how we found out what it meant).

[skymt]

Funnily enough GEICO is an acronym, it stands for Government Employee Insurance COmpany :) (My dad was trying to get a job with them a while ago that's how we found out what it meant).

If GEICO was open source, it would be the GEICO Insurance COmpany. ;)

[Rhapsody]

The OP has a very valid point.

The importance in good naming conventions IS NOT AFTER THE APPLICATION IS WIDELY POPULAR OR ACCEPTED. The true power of a good name is most important when an application is new. Quirky names are fun, yeah, but in all honesty, if I told my friend I was listening to something in Amarok, he'd be utterly confused, whereas, if I'd said iTunes or Windows Media Player or WinAmp they would know exactly what I was doing and with what sort of program.

Then don't say you're listening to something in Amarok. Say you're listening to something in an audio player, which is what Amarok is. You can mention it's called Amarok later, at which point he'll now know Amarok is an audio player.


An example of a good name on a Linux app? gFTP. It's short, sweet, easy-to-remember, and its name tells any sort of knowledgable user what its purpose is. Another? OpenOffice.org Word Processor. I don't think that name leaves any ambiguity at all.

There's only so many of those names to go around. What happens when all of the 'obvious' names are taken?

[Erik Trybom]

Ok, here comes a bit of a rant.

I hate those quirky names. They are not funny. Not in any way. GNU's not Unix, huh? Well, it's Not A Good Name either. Perhaps they should change to GNAGN?

KDE is another horror. Kopete. amaroK (should that be an uppercase A since it's the beginning of a sentence?). Konqueror. Krusader. Come on, this turned awkward ages ago, and it's not going to improve over time. Kubuntu is perhaps the worst so far, and it has spawned other abominations such as Xubuntu and Edubuntu. Please, don't take over KDE:s naming policy!

Not that GNOME is any better. It must always be spelled upper case because otherwise people might associate it with the mythical creatures with large beards. Sigh. Here's a hint: we already do. Don't make acronyms that spell out a word, because the word is then going to be the de facto name of that application. No one talks about G-N-O-M-E, they talk about Gnome, and rightly so. After all, don't GNU programmers often tend to have large beards and hide in the underground with strange mushrooms?

Don't even get me started on LaTeX. To quote Scott McPeak, "It is too easily confused with latex, a synthetic rubber-like substance, and it seems elitist to many people. Even by writing "Latex" instead of "LaTeX" or "LATEX" I'm violating the "recommended practice". But the other forms are just too annoying. The reason for this bizarre arrangement of letters is in part to distinguish it from the aforementioned rubber-like substance, but mostly to show off what is possible in Latex (encouraging the perception of elitism)."

[egon spengler]

The OP has a very valid point.

Not really


The importance in good naming conventions IS NOT AFTER THE APPLICATION IS WIDELY POPULAR OR ACCEPTED. The true power of a good name is most important when an application is new.

How can you seriously type this after it's been repeately shown through out the thread that weird and nondescriptive names such as Windows, Dreamweaver, Flash and iPod have proved no hinderance to success?


Quirky names are fun, yeah, but in all honesty, if I told my friend I was listening to something in Amarok, he'd be utterly confused, whereas, if I'd said iTunes or Windows Media Player or WinAmp they would know exactly what I was doing and with what sort of program.

So your point is that using any audio player other than WMP or Winamp could possibly cause confusion and so should be avoided? Someone I used to know had a Nakamichi tape deck, I guess he should have thrown that out and got a Goodmans so more people would know the brand. And hey, I know foobar is widely considered the best audio player on any platform but some people have never heard of it (and the name isn't foobar mp3/ogg/ape/wav/midi player) so I guess all the users should abandon it

[Demio]

It seems that the OP is just trying to find something to complain about. Really, who gives a damn about naming conventions? The name of a product is up to the developers to choose and the community to adopt not the other way around (unless there's some kind of public vote).

[argie]

It's a name. Get over it.

The problem with a lot of these ideas is that they've got the wrong idea of the OSS system*. No, you don't get to name what someone else made (unless you fork it). Yes, (s)he gets to name it. No, you can't consolidate all developers into one group and make them work on one project. Yes, they will only work on what they want. :)

Or maybe OP has a point. Perhaps we'll call Mr. Smith who works at the telephone exchange, Mr. Man Who Works at Telephone Exchange, or Mr. Phoneman, and his wife, Ms. Jones who works as a anaesthetist, Ms. Anaesthetist. I mean, Mr. Smith isn't a smith, and Ms. Jones doesn't jone. Yep, I'll call them those descriptive names when they come round to dinner next week.

Also, next time I do tech support, I'll talk to Mr. Customer, though this is confusing, because if Mr. Smith wants tech support, he'll be Mr. Customer to me then, Mr. Telephone when I ask him for my phone bill, and Mr. Speaker when he speaks at the colony residents' council.

And then I'm going to call a tomato, Round Red Vegetable (RRV), and an apple, Round Red Fruit (RRF). My, what a lovely universe, I can just imagine the possibilities! Vegetable Salad becomes Sliced Melange of Round Red Vegetable, Cross-sectional slices of long green vegetable, and other vegetables.

Re-reading that, I fear I've gone off at a rather "interesting"(?) tangent.

*I do not claim to know it either :D

[prizrak]

nd then I'm going to call a tomato, Round Red Vegetable (RRV)
Tomato is actually a fruit :) Apple's could be of different colors too

[aysiu]

argie, good point. I found your post hilarious. Actually, I think in certain countries in the olden days, people were named for their jobs, but now you just have whatever name you have.

egon_spengler, good point about foobar. I'd never heard of foobar before I started using Ubuntu and people in these forums would talk about how they missed foobar so much and it's the greatest app or whatever.

My impression: people will laugh they hear a funny name, but if the application or product does the job and is free or cheap... they'll use it!

Come on! I've got my wife using Smultron, Taco, Cyberduck, and Firefox. Do you think she was hip to using those at first? Do you think she cares about the names now?

[maniacmusician]

hehe i've never heard of Smultron, Taco, or Cyberduck. pretty cool names, i have to say.

[aysiu]

hehe i've never heard of Smultron, Taco, or Cyberduck. pretty cool names, i have to say.
They're all Mac OS X applications, which is why you've never heard of them.

Taco (http://tacosw.com/main.php) is freeware with good syntax highlighting for HTML. Smultron (http://smultron.sourceforge.net/) is open source with good syntax highlighting for HTML.

My wife uses both for website creation and editing.

Cyberduck (http://cyberduck.ch/) is an open source FTP client.

Interestingly enough, in Smultron's FAQ...
The name?
Smultron is the Swedish name for wild strawberry and I thought it sounds kind of nice. Plus I didn't have to think about the icon for the application.

[maniacmusician]

ahh that's awesome...speaking of which, we could use an awesome ftp client application as well! too bad cyberduck is OS X only, it looks halfway decent.

[prizrak]

ahh that's awesome...speaking of which, we could use an awesome ftp client application as well! too bad cyberduck is OS X only, it looks halfway decent.

Filezilla is your friend :)

[maniacmusician]

oh yeah, i heard the alpha was out! but i never tried it. thanks for reminding me lol.

[aysiu]

FileZilla is now beta, actually, and fairly stable. Not exactly as fully featured as the Windows version yet (grrr...), but it's out.

By the way, Cyberduck is open source. Anyone thought of porting it to Linux?

[maniacmusician]

it probably wouldnt be too hard to port since it's on OS X, but i really can't even code. it'd be a good project for someone to attempt though. But they'd probably get stuck with having to maintain it as well, heh.

that's cool, about FileZilla. I think i'm going to go head over for a quick download.

[Erik Trybom]

A good naming convention, in my opinion, means "think about it". Most names are OK really. The only ones I'm having trouble with are those who 1) are built upon jokes (and try too hard), 2) are stupid acronyms and/or 3) defies normal spelling rules. Avoiding these traps is the key to coming up with good names.

I can come up with plenty of examples if you wish, but I think you all know what I mean.

[Old Pink]

I'll agree with you on the iTunes thing, the whole "i" idea is quite ingenious, and you're right you know what you're getting with "Tunes"

However, all the other examples are popular/good purely because you hear alot about them. If gAIM had a huge user base and nobody spoke of MSN Messenger/Live Messenger, then you'd think Live/MSN was a bad name.

[prizrak]

A good naming convention, in my opinion, means "think about it". Most names are OK really. The only ones I'm having trouble with are those who 1) are built upon jokes (and try too hard), 2) are stupid acronyms and/or 3) defies normal spelling rules. Avoiding these traps is the key to coming up with good names.

I can come up with plenty of examples if you wish, but I think you all know what I mean.

I agree with you there. A name should be memorable and easy to spell and hopefully "cool".

[jcrnan]

Erik Trybom: I agree :)

Just to make some things clear, my first point was indeed a rant, not a scientific research document as some seem to treat it like ;) And even tough theyre my own opinions I think their quite valid. The thing is that any name of an application can become widley accepted if enough PR is pusdhed into it, simple as that. But even if a name is popular doesnt mean its good.

Also people seem to be taking what I said to the extremes. There is no reason for every name to be 100% descriptive, but as I mentioned names like safari (or dreamweaver and windows for that matter) are quite good. Theyre simple and understandable and even tough they dont directly say what the program does, the name is still connected to what it does.

And dont go using big companies as examples. lots of pr covers any kind of bad name.

Oh and btw: The reason I started the thread wasnt just to point out that there are bad names, ofcourse there are. But to point out that especially in the linux/oss community its more commonplace then elsewhere and I think that developers should ask people who know what theyre talking about for help when deciding on names/logos, etc. Thats generally not programmers area of expertise.

[BWF89]

No one talks about G-N-O-M-E, they talk about Gnome, and rightly so. After all, don't GNU programmers often tend to have large beards and hide in the underground with strange mushrooms?
So true, there are quite a few parallels :D .

Also, next time I do tech support, I'll talk to Mr. Customer, though this is confusing, because if Mr. Smith wants tech support, he'll be Mr. Customer to me then
When I said hi to one of the local mailmen last weekend I adressed him as "Mr. Mailman" and it didn't seem too weird. Although I was baked at the time so I can never be completely sure. Is that weird? It seemed fit at the time (consitering my state of mind) but now that I think that's the way I started our short conversation while we met walking down the street it seems sorta little kiddish.

FileZilla is now beta, actually, and fairly stable. Not exactly as fully featured as the Windows version yet (grrr...), but it's out.
Is FileZilla in any way connected to Mozilla?

[maniacmusician]

I don't know if it's connected, but i downloaded and tried it, and it was awesome. as aysiu said, not as fully features as should be, but it's so much better than gftp. puts it to shame, just in the way that it looks. functionality is probably good too, knowing filezilla, but i havnt explored too much yet.

[argie]

hehe i've never heard of Smultron, Taco, or Cyberduck. pretty cool names, i have to say.
Yeah, pretty cool. I like them, though Cyberduck is a bit on the wacky side.

My all time favourite is NERO Burning ROM. I mean, see, you get such a different perspective if you pronounce ROM Rome. And then you go, "Ohhh! That's pretty damn cool!", if you happen to know the background, of course.

Personally, as long as it's catchy I don't care much. Besides even if it isn't catchy, it works. I just searched for "Writing and editing mathematical formulae Linux" (no quotes) and Google has two results on the front page that I would naturally go for, one regarding OO:Writer, the other is TeXmacs. I guess you could make a case for Writer, but TeXmacs? And another result which I'd open in another tab is the linux.com page (http://www.linux.com/howtos/DocBook-Demystification-HOWTO/x228.shtml) on a similiar topic. I bet you'd have better results by searching this forum.

As it happens, I think I have found what I want with TeXmacs, a name which seems to talk about a word processor on a macintosh.

Try "Media Player KDE" and see what you get.

[egon spengler]

Also people seem to be taking what I said to the extremes. There is no reason for every name to be 100% descriptive, but as I mentioned names like safari (or dreamweaver and windows for that matter) are quite good. Theyre simple and understandable and even tough they dont directly say what the program does, the name is still connected to what it does.

Perhaps there could possibly be some argument that Windows describes what the software does (to a degree) seeing as the OS facilitates various apps opening in windows. You're lying to yourself to pretend that in any way other than the most abstract do the names "Safari" and "Dreamweaver" pertain to the functionality of the apps


Oh and btw: The reason I started the thread wasnt just to point out that there are bad names, ofcourse there are. But to point out that especially in the linux/oss community its more commonplace then elsewhere and I think that developers should ask people who know what theyre talking about for help when deciding on names/logos, etc. Thats generally not programmers area of expertise.

I would wager a considerable sum that like most negative posts on forums the reason that you started this thread is that you heard someone else make this ill founded argument, thought it made sense and so just slavishly repeated it.

I'm also quite sure that for every "bad" non descriptive Linux/OSS name you can come up with there are equal numbers of proprietary software with "bad" names.

What do Reason, Recycle, Fruity Loops, Logic, Cubase, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Maya, Trillian, Acrobat, Winamp, Quintessential or Aim do?

None of them are readily apparent by the name although of course seeing as you're no doubt familiar with some of them you'll try to convince yourself and everyone else that the name outlook conjures images of sending email

[prizrak]

What do Reason, Recycle, Fruity Loops, Logic, Cubase, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Maya, Trillian, Acrobat, Winamp, Quintessential or Aim do?

None of them are readily apparent by the name although of course seeing as you're no doubt familiar with some of them you'll try to convince yourself and everyone else that the name outlook conjures images of sending email

Winamp is sort of intuitive. If you are familiar with Windows already the "win" part of the name is obvious and "amp" is definetly music related. The rest is definetly non-obvious. I don't even know what Quintessential does.

[jcrnan]

egon spengler: Actually, you just have a really bad imagination if you cant connect safari to web browsing and dreamweaver to making webpages.

Oh and you would loose a lot of money on that. I have been annoyd by such naming ever since I got exposed to linux. Yes there is commercial apps that have bad names, but open source-linux names that are good seem to be rarer (wich is logical as the people making the names know less about good naming) but yes this is imo a problem that does not only apply to open source and linux. Altough commercial software producers seem to get better at branding as well.

Also I said that many of the good names were not nessicerily stuff that made sense beforey you know what the program did but afterwards.

[argie]

Actually, not really jcrnan. Take AmaroK

Rok => Rock => Music => Media player!

If you have sufficient imagination you can see anything.

[jcrnan]

well, you could but thats pushing it a bit :P But I see your point.

[maniacmusician]

quintessential is pretty crappy (imho) music player.

i think this "debate" died a little while ago. The name convention is silly, yeah, but it doesnt really hurt us. I think we've all established the reason that linux isn't more popular than windows, and that's that. name conventions shall do nothing.

[skymt]

The GNU project is the worst perpetrator of terrible names. Take Hurd, for example:
`Hurd' stands for `Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons'. And, then, `Hird' stands for `Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth'. We have here, to my knowledge, the first software to be named by a pair of mutually recursive acronyms. :-k

[argie]

Haha, that's plain hilarious. Those GNU guys are always amusing.


well, you could but thats pushing it a bit :P But I see your point.
Haha yeah, it's stretching it a bit :)

[egon spengler]

egon spengler: Actually, you just have a really bad imagination if you cant connect safari to web browsing and dreamweaver to making webpages.

I'm a professional web developer and I still see no connection. I have never once weaved (or woven I guess) a dream and web design has never been described as anything resembling dreamweaving by anyone I have ever worked with. When testing in safari it doesn't harken images of trips across the Serengeti.

You're lying to yourself if you honestly think that on mention of the word "dreamweaver" people would instantly (or even after a year of ruminating on the matter) think "Why yes, that must surely be an app that produces poorly written HTML + PHP"

[aysiu]

If making a connection between dreamweaver and web development is the prerequisite for a good imagination, then I'm the dullest, most practical person alive.

I understand why they picked the name, because they want web development to be the weaving of dreams, but it hardly is, and anyone who has actually used Dreamweaver would realize that pretty quickly.

That'd be like calling a plumbing tool "ambiance inducer." Any connection between the name and function is wishful thinking. Sure, you'd have a terrible ambiance if your plumbing isn't working (particularly the toilet plumbing), but...

[Peepsalot]

Actually, not really jcrnan. Take AmaroK

Rok => Rock => Music => Media player!

If you have sufficient imagination you can see anything.
"I amarok. I amanISLAND." - Simon and Garfunkel :p

[aysiu]

"I amarok. I amanISLAND." - Simon and Garfunkel :p
Hilarious! Did you come up with that yourself or read it somewhere?

[Peepsalot]

It's just what I think of when I read the name aloud. :D

[tonyr1988]

All names sound weird until they become embedded into our vocabulary. Take:

computer - If you break it down, it's Latin for "working (something) out together" (I read it somewhere, so it could be wrong). Whatever it is, it's definately far from intuitive. Now, it is its own word!

mouse - wtf? Enough said.

iPod - No, it doesn't hold peas. It's a music player - that's right, you listen to songs from it!

And that's just hardware - tons of people have mentioned various crazy-named software.

[skymt]

All names sound weird until they become embedded into our vocabulary. Take:

computer - If you break it down, it's Latin for "working (something) out together" (I read it somewhere, so it could be wrong). Whatever it is, it's definately far from intuitive. Now, it is its own word!

mouse - wtf? Enough said.

iPod - No, it doesn't hold peas. It's a music player - that's right, you listen to songs from it!

And that's just hardware - tons of people have mentioned various crazy-named software.

A computer computes math problems. At a very low level, that's all it's doing.

A mouse (computer peripheral) looks like a mouse (rodent). The cord is the tail, in case you lack the necessary imagination. ;)

An iPod is supposed to look like something from a science-fiction movie. Think "space pod", not "pea pod". The "i" bit originally stood for Internet, as in the iMac, or Internet Mac. They bragged that it could be out of the box and on the Internet in 15 (I think?) minutes. Now it just means "i am made by Apple".